The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1887-08-20
THE POPULATION OF CHINA.

The government OF China Is now
engaged in a work which should
have occupied its attention long
ago. 1t is attempting to take an
accurate census of the empire, and
so to solve what has always been
an insoluble puzzle for geographers-
There is hardly any subject in ge
ography on which SO many contra
ry opinions have been held as the
population of that empire.
An imperial census of the empire
was taken in 1912, and the popula-
tion of the eighteen provinces was
given at 362 Az 1888. Forty years
afterward, Morrison figured the to-
tai at 39G,O00,O00, Cooke at $780,
100000 and Pierer at 4lO,OOO,OOO.
Ten years later, a general distrust
in the accuracy of these esti-
mates prevailed in well-informed
circles, and the opinion was widely
held that the entire population of
the empire did not exceed $50, ,000,-
600, if it was as large as that Mr..
Williams was inclined to favor an
estimate of 3O0,0O0,O00, though he
has subsequently admitted that this
figure may be too low. One reason
for discrediting these very large
figures was that they implied an
average population throughout the
empire of 800 to the square mile
a proportion nearly equal to that
of Belgium, which is populated
throughout its area, while large
tracts ofcountry in China are known
to be unpopulated.
Ten years ago Robert Hart un-
dertook to guess at the population
OF the empire from calculations
based on house taxes and other
imposts but he arrived at no con
clusions that were satisfactory. The
new returns which are now coming
in appear to have been more care
fully prepared. They are predicated
OH the proceeds of head taxes, house
taxes and the like. The returns
from twelve provinces are all in;
they foot up 32l 100000. If the
other six provinces return the same
figures as they did when they were
last counted the total aggregate will
be about 404 100000 souls.
The fluctuations in population,
caused by civil wars and famines
on one hand, and by the develop
ment of industry and agriculture
on the other, are very remarkable.
Thus, the province of Che-Kiang,
on the seaboard, is said to have
contained 26,OO,00O people year
ago; in 1912 its population was
reckoned at 30,000,0OO; now it re-
turns 1851 900. The Tapping
rubels held possession of this prov
ince for many years, and converted
parts of it into a desert. Mang-Se
is another decaying province in
1912 it reported 100000, and
now 100000. Kiang-Su, the
province in which Shanghai is sit
uated, had 100000 population
when Pierer made his estimates
it now returns 2O,O0O,OOO. Honan,
lying west of Kiang-Su, has fallen
from 100000 to 22,OO0,OOO. All
these provinces were held by the
Taepings until Gordon extirpated
them, and the ravages of war were
followed by the equally cruel raw
ages Of famine.
On the other hand, the province
of Quantung, from which the Chi
nese in this country come, has risen
in population from 2l,O00,OOO to
29.O0O,OO0; its neighbor Hoonan
from 2O,OOO,OOO to 31,OOO,OOO, and
the prosperous and fertile province
of Se-Chuen is credited with an ex-
traordinary increase of $50 per cent
in less than half a century. In 1912
its population was reconed at 2l,-
100000. 1t is now returned at
II 100000.
These figures must be considered
as mere guesses. There is in China
no such machinery for taking d GEN.
sus as we have in Christian coun-
tries, and Cinnamon are proverbi-
ally inaccurate in figures, Still,
such dispassionate and well-in-
formed observers as the editor of
the North Chinese Daily News ap-
pear to attach faith in a general
way, to the new returns of the
Board of Revenue; and we may
conclude that the aggregates. as
we'll as the extraordinary fluctua-
tions in the population of separate
provinces, approximate to the truth.